Improvement in trunks



W. MAY-BERRY.

Improvement in Trunks.

Patented July 16,1872.

WITNESSES INVENTOR I UNITED STATES PATEN EEIo WILLIAM MAYBERRY, or CAMDEN, NEW JERSEY, ASSIGNOR OF TWO-THIRDS OF HIS RIGHT TO STEPHEN TITUS AND EDWARD w. MORRISON, JR, 0F

SAME PLACE.

IMPROVEMENT IN TRUNKS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 129,242, dated July 16, 1872.

Specification describing certain Improvements in Spring-Supporting Stays for the Lids of Trunks, Pianos, Desks, 850., invented by WILLIAM MAYBERRY, of Camden, in the county of Camden and State of New Jersey.

My invention relates to the construction of a spring-supporting stay for trunks, pianos, desks, &c., of a piece of springy wire, or its equivalent strip of springy metal, bent at its ends, and doubled together near its mid-length so as to form a V-spring, one arm of which will serve as a tension-stay and the other as a spring-support, and together operate in combination with a slotted plate and mortise at one end of the trunk or other article having a falling lid, while the opposite or common end of the two arms is pivoted or articulated to the corresponding end of the lid of said trunk or other similar article; the object of my invention being to afford a reliable supporting-stay, for the purpose specified, at a trifling cost, and thatcan be readily applied to any trunk or other article provided with a falling lid.

Figure 1 is a perspective view of a common traveling-trunk having my invention applied thereto. Fig. 2 is a transverse section of Fig. 1, showing the mortise as uncovered.

The spring-supporting stay A is made of springy wire of about an eighth of an inch in diameter and nine or ten inches in length, the two ends being bent into the respective hooklike forms a a, and the wire then doubled, so as to form two arms, 4 and 5, and a loop, a. The plate B has a slot along in its middle, and is let in and screwed fast to the upper edge of one end of the trunk, the endpiece of the latter being mortised,:as shown at G, for the purpose of allowing the hooked ends a a of the two arms of A to pass freely down into the same as the lid of the trunk is being shut down, while the looped end a of A turns upon a cross-pin in a plate fixed to the edge of the end-piece of the lid. The two arms are separated at their hooked ends sufficiently to cause them to spring apart when they are drawn up by raising the lid of the trunk to the position shown in the drawing, and thus cause the Supporting-arm to spring outward from the slot in the plate B until it is caught by the counterhook 6, and thus prevented from escaping entirely, and caused to serve as a supporting-brace and keep the lid in its vertical position. The other arm, 5, serves at the same time as a stay, its hook to catching under the plate B, and thus preventing the lid of the trunk from falling backward. When it is desired to close down the lid the lower. projecting part of 4, which restsagainst the plate B at the forward end of the slot therein, is to be pushed backward until it slips into the slot and thus allows the lid to be closed, the two arms 4 and 5 passing downward into the mortise O, as shown by the dotted lines in Fig. 2.

The. device is exceedingly simple in construction and application, costs but a triile, and is self-acting in raising the lid, and reliable as a support for the same when raised.

I am aware that a curved flat plate, split at one end so as to produce two thinner separated portions, which will slide when compressed together in a correspondingly-curved mortise in the end-piece of a desk or trunk, while the opposite end of the said curved plate is rigidly fixed to the end-piece of the lid, one of the separated portions of the split end of said plate being caused by the other to spring out and catch so as to keep the lid from falling, is old; therefore I do not desire to claim, broad- 1y, a supporting spring-stay for the lidsof trunks or desks; but

lVhat I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is strictly confined to the following, viz-5 In combination with the body and lid of a trunk the supporting springstay A, constructed of springy wire, and applied to operate in combination with the mortise 'O and plate B, as set forth, for the purpose of affording a more simple and less costly device for supporting the open lid of a trunk, as described.

WILLIAM MAYBERRY.

Witnesses BENJ. MORISON, WM. H. MoRIsoN. 

